People are already starting to doubt that the effects of El Nino will show up and this was predicted because all of the other Super El Ninos of the past have been built up with anticipation only for November to come and the doubts started flying in. Once December hit, those who did not prepare paid for it. Read on more on what to expect for the rest of the month and going into the next few months by reading on …
November 2015 is shaping up to be a mixed bag, with one system already passed, San Diego no doubt got the most rain from it while others didn’t get as much. Still, most of Southern California is below the average for the month, despite what San Diego saw so far. What is the rest of the month showing?
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So far November 2015 is behaving like a true Fall El Nino. The Eastern United States is warmer while the Western United States is cooler. This pattern for the country has not happened in November for a long time and this signals that El Nino effects are taking hold. Furthermore, the snowy conditions of last year across the Eastern half of the country in October were not seen this year. This shows that there is no ridge forming west of California to bring cold Canadian air into the Central/Eastern United States. Severe weather is expected across the Central/Eastern part of the country today and this is yet another indicator that El Nino effects are starting to take hold.
November 2015 will likely go without too much more activity. We could get a storm system before the end of the month is over to push precipitation values up, however November is not really an active month during an El Nino Fall. It however is during a La Nina and Neutral ENSO Fall. December, January, February, and March are considered the most active in terms of major storm systems into California during El Nino.
As stated in the final forecast, Southern California is NOT in the bulk of the moisture plume this season. Central/Northern California will be and this means it’ll help the drought with a very healthy storm track, including major snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
This month, a ridge forming over the Colorado Rocky Mountains would block some of the storms from entering Southern California, while directing a plume of moisture from Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Some southern parts of the storms would leak down into Southern California so don’t think the rest of the month will be dry. Given the surface pressures are high between Southern California and Hawaii this month, storms will not sag too far south and no established tropical jet would develop.
The way the upper level trough is over Alaska this month tells the rest of the season and it looks very good. Given this, December 2015 will be the start of the storm track into Southern California. As a trough develops south of Alaska in the North-Central Pacific Ocean we will start to see the jet stream forced southward, taking out the surface high pressure between California and Hawaii. The end result would be a moisture plume into California, with San Francisco at the very center of the landfall point and moisture heading into the Pacific Northwest as well.
Come January 2016 we start to see true El Nino with the Pacific Northwest drying more than California and the storm track remains into California.
February 2016 looks interesting because this is where we get average precipitation in California while the Pacific Northwest gets below average still. This is likely due to the upper trough in the North-Central Pacific tightening up and sending most of the moisture to Southeast Alaska and the pickings into California.
By March 2016 the pattern relaxes again and storms are allowed to return in large numbers into California, still keeping the Pacific Northwest dry and a similar month in storm track like January will be. So while December will be above average in the Pacific Northwest, most areas will be drier than average for the season while California gets hit with storm after storm for the most part.
I heard someone tell me they ‘heard’ that El Nino is smaller storms that add up. Whoever said that needs to never forecast again. El Nino has produced some of the most powerful severe thunderstorms California has ever seen and this is because of the powerful jet/moisture combination factor.
California will get hit hard this season and nobody should lower their guard. Here are the monthly breakdowns talked about in here and all images are clickable.
